Leicester Middle, Leicester MA - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Leicester Middle

Leicester Middle School serves grades five through eight in a town with a rural-to-suburban character. Leicester itself is a spread-out community of four distinct villages—Leicester Center, Cherry Valley, Rochdale, and Greenville—intersected by two state highways. The built environment is auto-oriented, with single-family homes on larger lots and small commercial nodes at village crossroads rather than a continuous downtown. The school is part of the Leicester district, where students in the upper grades feed into Leicester High School; eighth graders also have the option of attending a regional technical high school.

Academically, the school’s performance on state assessments is modest compared to other middle schools in Worcester County. The overall proficiency index, which averages results across tested subjects and grades, sits below the midpoint relative to districts in the county. In the most recent testing year, the share of students reaching proficiency in math and English language arts was roughly three in ten. Science and social studies results, the latter available only for eighth graders, showed a somewhat higher share of students meeting the bar. These figures reflect a single year, but the longer trend line is worth noting: English language arts proficiency has drifted downward over the past handful of years, and math proficiency, after a brief period of improvement, has also declined from earlier peaks. The school’s participation rates on state tests are very high, which means the results reliably represent the full student body. Families considering Leicester Middle may want to ask the school about the specific strategies and supports in place to address these academic trends.

The student body is relatively small for a middle school and predominantly white, with a notable Hispanic minority and smaller shares of Black and Asian students. Data on economic disadvantage, students with disabilities, and English learners were not available, so it is not possible to assess the level of supports or the school’s performance across those groups from the information here.

The town’s housing market reflects a stable, moderately priced inventory relative to the rest of the state. Home values are in a mid-range bracket, and the market has seen active listings and pending sales. Leicester’s population growth has been slow, and the town is focused on encouraging commercial development rather than rapid residential expansion. The district itself has not reported any recent major changes such as referendums, curriculum overhauls, or boundary shifts.

Because the school does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report. No information on specific programs, course offerings, or extracurricular activities was available for this profile. Leicester Middle is a regular public school; it is not a charter or a magnet school.

For a family that values a small, community-based middle school in a quiet, low-density town, Leicester Middle offers a familiar setting. The academic challenges and the downward performance trend, however, are factors that call for a closer conversation with the school about instruction, intervention, and how the school measures progress over time.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grades 3-829%

School 29% · District 26% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

English language arts

Grades 3-829%

School 29% · District 28% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 12 pts below state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

Science

Grades 3-839%

School 39% · District 37% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▼ 3 pts below state median · even with county median

Social studies

Grade 837%

School 37% · District 36% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 2 pts above state median · even with county median

This schoolLeicester, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 5Lower-income23%Higher-income24%1 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income18%Higher-income32%14 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income16%Higher-income37%21 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income19%Higher-income51%32 pp gap

Grades 3-8Lower-income19%Higher-income36%17 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income13%Higher-income46%33 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income15%Higher-income27%12 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income18%Higher-income43%26 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income19%Higher-income37%18 pp gap

Grades 3-8Lower-income16%Higher-income38%22 pp gap